updated 08:00 pm EDT, Thu October 23, 2008

Microsoft Q1 report

Microsoft has announced its financial report for the first fiscal quarter of 2009, which ended September 30th, showing a revenue of $15.06 billion, operating income of $6 billion, and net income of $4.37 billion. Although the revenue gained roughly nine percent from the same period last year, when expenses are taken into account the net income shows an unimpressive two percent increase. The company highlighted strong sales of its enterprise software and Xbox 360 consoles.

Despite the reference to strong Xbox 360 sales, the gross revenue for its Entertainment and Devices Division actually slipped by six percent, although Microsoft was still able to pull slightly higher profits because of reduced operating expenses. The company had a difficult time with its Client division, which would include the Windows platform, with an operating income loss of three percent.

Although Microsoft typically shows fairly level performance quarter to quarter, the financial numbers might be showing the effects of the economic slump. Apple seems to have weathered the initial problems better, with its financial report this week that showed a 35 percent revenue jump. Both companies have taken a conservative approach to the outlook for the rest of the year, however. Microsoft referenced several new enterprise-level products that it expects to drive sales through the next quarter, including SQL Server 2008 and Hyper-V Server 2008.

The company outlined its general strategy to overcome poor market conditions. "In this economic environment, the company is focused on three main actions; working with customers to provide high value products at the lowest total overall cost of ownership, increasing focus on expense management and targeting investment into the highest priority strategic opportunities."

MS made $15B in revenue this quarter, Apple made (non-GAAP) about $11B.

Of course, MS's profit this quarter ($4.3B) is about equal to Apple's YEARLY profit last year ($4.3B), so I'm not suggesting that Apple is catching up to MS just yet, BUT Apple has grown 400% in the last four years, how long with MS stagnant will it be before Apple is ahead of MS in revenue??